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Children with Special Needs are Being Denied Opportunities
Dear Editor:
We are writing as the parent of a developmentally disabled child and as the director of The Friends Network, a non-profit organization that provides after school respite to children with special needs in Putnam County.
We would like to call attention to the absolute refusal of some school district transportation departments in Putnam to provide buses for developmentally disabled children to an after-school program specifically devised for them. These districts do not offer any kind of after school program for disabled children. Yet they refuse to provide transportation for these children to an appropriate program for them. It is a fact that some children with special needs who reside in Putnam County are being denied the same opportunities routinely afforded to mainstream students.
Families of developmentally disabled children in Putnam County have long voiced the need for an after-school and Saturday recreation/respite program for this underserved population.
For four years The Friends Network has attempted to fill this critical need. The physical location of The Friends Network is in the Town of Southeast. The local school district has been extremely cooperative, as have other districts in the area. However, despite repeated and increasingly desperate pleas from parents who have no other alternatives for after-school care, some Putnam County school districts resolutely refuse to make any kind of accommodation for their students.
We are supposed to be a community, one that is not strictly defined by the borders of our school districts. Developmentally disabled children need to have the same opportunities that mainstream students are afforded. Our communities need to work together to ensure that all children have a place to go after school. All school districts in Putnam County must agree to accommodate special needs students. We urge everyone in our area to get involved to solve this problem. Ask a parent you know in Putnam County who has a child with special needs and would like for them to attend an after-school program, an opportunity most parents are fortunate enough to take for granted. Find out where and what the obstacles are for these families. Then voice your outrage as a community. Only then can we change the attitudes and the actions of these school administrators, and make the lives of our less fortunate neighbors a little better.
Linda Kiss-Gruetzner,
Director, The Friends
Network
Nancy Finch, parent, Carmel
School District
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